humour | jmgoyder

First crush

by jmgoyder

It was mid-semester break at the local university where I worked so I took Ming in with me. He was nearly four. I’d only done this once before and it’d been a disaster because there was nothing for him to do except run up and down the hallway, vrooming, which wasn’t really appropriate at exam time.

This time I had a drawer full of paper, textas, finger puppets, matchbox cars and chocolate frogs ready, and for awhile this worked really well. I closed my office door and started preparing for the following semester while Ming played and drew pictures happily on the floor.

Inevitably, Ming got bored, so finally I opened my office door and told him he could go up and down the hallway quietly. He raced out.

After a few minutes I realised it was just a bit too quiet and, worried he’d wandered outside, I darted into the hallway just in time to see him dragging a chair from one of empty lecture rooms into the hallway and across to another lecture room. This was a big job for a little guy and I retreated to my doorway and watched, unnoticed, while, grunting with exertion, he finally propped the chair up against the closed door.

I knew there was some sort of community seminar going on in that room and earlier I’d bumped into the woman conducting it and said a quick hello. She’d seen Ming and crouched down at his eye-level and ruffled his hair, saying, “You’re a handsome devil aren’t you!” But it wasn’t until I saw him clambering onto the chair to look through the small window into the room where she was giving some sort of presentation that I realised how much impact she’d had on him.

I tip-toed up behind him to watch this woman through Ming’s ‘little-boy’ eyes. She was certainly beautiful; she was young, slim, olive-skinned and her black hair fell to her waist. Ming was so transfixed that he had no idea I was there until she suddenly noticed us peering in. She was so startled that I whisked Ming off the chair and back into my office, embarrassed.

But, much to my surprise, he ran straight back and picked up the chair, which had fallen over, and clambered onto it again to have another look. I quietly left him to it.

A few minutes later, I heard voices in the hallway, indicating that the seminar had finished. Ming toddled back into my office, an ecstatic smile on his face.

“Come an’ look, Mummy,” he said, pulling me away from my desk and into the hallway. The woman was walking away but, for some reason, she turned back and saw us watching her. She waved, and Ming waved back. Then she was gone. He sighed.

“That’s a bootiful womin, isint it, Mummy,” he said, looking up at me, his eyes full of light. I was flabbergasted. Was he in love?

It took weeks to wear off!

…..

Now that Ming is 18 he has experienced a few more crushes and been crushed by them as we all are at that age. It is strange to think that I was, at his age, falling in love with Anthony. I wonder who Ming will end up forming a relationship with and I hope she will be kind to him like the woman in the story above. If she isn’t, I will bop her!

Family Wings

37 Comments »

Just for fun!

by jmgoyder

Just for fun, I sent my kissing peafowl photo to Robyn at http://throughthehealinglens.com/ to see if she could improve it. And look what she’s done – amazing difference!

Here is the ‘before’:

And here is the ‘after’ – Robyn’s version:

I love it! Thank you, Robyn.

blogging Friendship Wings

24 Comments »

The happy tears!

by jmgoyder

[I love remembering this kind of thing!]

Ming and I had gone to Bunbury specifically to search out and buy the latest Beyblades DVD, number 2, which had just come out. He already had number 1 so he was terribly excited that I was going to buy the next one for him. He loved these not-too-often, special occasions which he called “shopping spwee days.”

As usual it took a couple of hours to find it as two of the three mains shops that stocked that sort of thing had already sold out. But when we hit the third shop, hurray! Not only did they have Beyblades 2, they even had Beyblades 3!

Then came the crunch. As Ming held the two DVDs in his hot little hands, I told him that he had to choose one. He looked up at me longingly, a deep frown creasing his little forehead, then he looked back at the DVDs. “It’s a vewy differcult desishun, Mummy, isint it?”

I explained that I couldn’t afford both of them and that, even if I could, I didn’t want him to turn into a spoiled brat.

“But I haven’t been nawdy for millions of days, Mummy!” he said, trying to outmaneuver me with a winning smile. But it didn’t work. Well, not at first.

“One DVD and that is that!” I said in a mock stern voice.

“Okay,” he said with a big sigh. “But I havta siddown to fink.” With that, he plonked himself onto the ground and studied every detail of each DVD case for a good ten minutes.

Finally he leapt up and yelled, “Quick Mummy, I done my desishun!” He was obviously wanting to move fast before he changed his mind, which had happened on other occasions – sometimes too late.

Ming had chosen Beyblades 2,but his expression of deep regret as he put back Beyblades 3 got to me, so I secretly picked it up again when he wasn’t looking. I told him to go and check out the other DVDs while I made the purchase. I’d decided to surprise him by buying both.

After putting the package of DVDs in the car, we went to Hungry Jacks which was always part of the “shopping swee day.” Munching on his chips, Ming looked at me thoughtfully. “I fink I shoulda got numba 3, Mummy”. Again the frown.

“Maybe next time,” I said.

“Someone else’s widdle boy’ll get it,” he said sadly.

In the car, before we took off for home, I suggested he take a look at the DVD, so, excited again, he opened up the package. I glanced over to see the shock of his discovery washing over his face, but he didn’t say anything. He just looked up at me, bewildered.

I wondered why he was so quiet, then I saw that his eyes were filled with tears. “Ming!” I exclaimed, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m cwying from happiness, Mummy, look!” He wiped his eyes with the collar of his shirt and showed me the wet patch.

“Weal dwops! That never happened to me before!”

Ming was so blown away by his happy teardrops, that he nearly forgot the extra DVD. I was quite touched.

But as I started the car, he recovered (with remarkable speed, I thought later) and said, “When is numba 4 coming, Mummy?” with a mischievous grin.

Family

30 Comments »

Hope

by jmgoyder

In the morning, Ming and I are going into town to an appointment with someone who will help us to cope with each other, the farm and Anthony’s deterioration.

I told Ants about this appointment when I saw him this afternoon with my red wine and he wanted to come along too but I said I couldn’t take him as it was too early in the morning etc. etc. and then I finally admitted to him that Ming’s anger would only be exacerbated if Ants were present.

“So he hates me then,” Anthony said, spilling his wine.

“No, Ants, he hates both of us at the moment,” I said.

“But why?”

“Because you are so sick and I am so sad.”

“Okay – just come here afterwards.”

And we will.

Family Friendship LOVE STORY

52 Comments »

Navel-gazing

by jmgoyder

This is Woodroffe, navel-gazing.

This is Woodroffe reminding me, sternly, that geese and ganders do not have navels and that, even if they did, they wouldn’t waste time gazing at them.

Animal Wings

13 Comments »

Payback

by jmgoyder

It was the Mother’s Day morning tea at kindy. I’d never been to one, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

All I knew was that Ming was excited about a “poortrit” he’d done of me. “It’s deesplayed,” he said, twinkly-eyed.

Well, five-year-olds are always twinkly, aren’t they? Never devious, surely. Or so I thought.

The day arrived and I wandered through the classroom, searching the walls for an image of myself. Having given me a general tour of the room, Ming had abandoned me to go and play.

We were all given a cup of tea and asked to sit down while the children passed around plates of scones, cake, timtams and twisties.

Once everyone was comfortable, the kids were summoned to sing their Mother’s Day song. By then I’d found Dillan’s and Danny’s mothers and we all got a bit choked up when those twelve five-year-olds sang the last line – “Mum, you aaaarrrre the best.”

Once the performance was over, we were then allowed to roam free once again. Mrs Segal told us all to take special notice of the wonderful portraits drawn by the children.

“Have you found yours yet?” Danny’s mum, Heidi, asked me, grinning strangely.

“It’s a real winner, Julie,” said Dillan’s mother, Sandra, giggling.

“No, I haven’t found it. Ming never stops drawing – he’s become very accurate,” I said, pleased they were impressed.

“Oh, it’s definitely very good,” said Heidi, with what seemed decidedly like a smirk.

“It might not be quite accurate though,” said Sandra.

Were they being sarcastic about my little Picasso? How dare they! But all I managed was a defensive, “Oh, well, he’s really keen, he’s trying hard. Maybe he just didn’t get exactly what he was supposed to do.”

Their laugher still echoes.

Heidi and Sandra took me by each arm and led me back to the portrait wall. Suddenly, several of Ming’s friends surrounded me. One of them whispered to me, “It’s the next one, Mrs Goyder,” then ran off, laughing. I looked around to find Ming behind me, pointing and smiling proudly, but somewhat sheepishly.

I looked back at the drawings, still unable to find me, until Dillan grabbed my hand and took me directly to Ming’s ‘Mum’ portrait.

The shock of it! The freckles were exaggerated, but I put that down to the Ming’s artistic immaturity. The slash of red lipstick was crookedly accurate though.

It was the thick, arrow-like eyebrows that struck me most. They were like backwards ticks. I’d seen Ming do this a thousand times when he was drawing his monsters.

That evening I tactfully complimented Ming on his superb portrait. “You made me look extremely cross,” I mentioned, pretending to be light-hearted.

“You got cross with me.”

“When?”

“When I was ownee two – with the pillow.”

“That was ages ago!” I couldn’t believe he was bringing up the incident when I had banged my head against the wall and told him to put the stuffing back into the pillow.

“Payback,” he said smugly.

Family

38 Comments »

Little licks of laughter and love

by jmgoyder

When Ming was a baby I used to call him ‘my little beautiful’. I would accompany this with tickling so that whenever I said ‘my little beautiful’ he would giggle and gurgle with the delight of anticipation.

I love laughing. I LOVE LAUGHING! Lately, though, there hasn’t been much to laugh about so my thirsty sense of humour seems to be grasping at the tiniest little things and latching onto them. Yesterday, for example, Ming and I were in a shop choosing birthday gifts for three of his friends – one girl and two guys. Ming had decided to buy perfume for the girl and cologne for the guys so we were examining the contents of the locked glass cabinet when he pointed to a tester bottle (you know, so you can test if you like it or not by spraying it on yourself). He said, ‘That looks like a good brand, Mum – Tester.’

I looked at him, thinking he was joking, but his expression was serious. ‘That’s a tester, Ming.’

‘Oh, do you know it?’

‘It’s a tester – it’s not a brand.’ By then I was nearly hysterical with laughter and Ming was blushing as the shop assistant opened the cabinet.

This incident keeps leaping, unbidden, back into my mind and making me laugh all over again.

A bit later on in the day, we met my mother and our visiting cousins at a restaurant overlooking a bay. As my mother and I stood at the counter ordering our food, she said the strangest thing to me. She said, “Where’s the water?” I pointed to the bay so she headed back to the cousins and Ming who were seated almost on top of the bay. I wondered if perhaps my mother might be losing the plot. Once I was again seated at our table, she asked me again and I suddenly realized she meant drinking water. Again, I became nearly hysterical with laughter; we all did.

I guess you had to be there!

Then, last night, when I rang Anthony at the nursing lodge to say goodnight and he said, ‘Hello, my beautiful,’ and my heart grinned.

Family Friendship LOVE STORY

38 Comments »

Roof rats

by jmgoyder

Yes, I am over-posting, I know! But the thing is that there are rat races happening just above my head in my little office (you know, the one I just cleaned out). The pest control man who came over the other day and did several hours of work to eradicate the (possibility of) termites, charged us a small fortune, and told me that the rats might be possums who might be rats, was too nervous to get into our ceiling even though we gave him a ladder.

Tonight I have made a decision. I will buy rat poison and throw it into the ceiling cavity because I cannot stand it anymore. Anthony used to do all of this stuff but he never taught me how, or where, or what – so I flounder with what I am supposed to do. It is a very old house so the electric wires are already old and a bit dangerous which is another thing I have to figure out.

I remember when my beautiful mother at 44 had to suddenly deal with all of the stuff Dad did before he died – all that supposedly manny stuff. She did it with more alacrity than I will ever have and anyway Anthony isn’t dead.

I am going to kill those rats because if I don’t they will fall through the ceiling and swallow me whole.

Animal

41 Comments »

A stitch in time

by jmgoyder

Years ago, when I was working as a nurse in Perth, I was walking home one day and I suddenly felt a peculiar pain underneath my left lower rib. It was like a stitch or a slight cramp. It persisted off and on over the next few days until one morning it woke me up. As I got dressed I realized I was shivering even though it was summer and the pain was definitely more than a stitch. I didn’t have a car in those days so I decided to walk to the closest doctor’s surgery which was about two kilometres away. By the time I got there I was actually holding my side in agony, sweating profusely and feeling faint. The doctor immediately sent me to hospital in a taxi and after many hours of waiting and tests I was diagnosed with a severe kidney infection and ended up on a drip and very sick for over a week. After I was better I decided never to forget that kind of strange stitch-like pain, subtle to begin with, but soon agonizing.

Two days ago, during my little blog-breather, I was cleaning out my office when I felt the same stitch-like pain and that night I tossed and turned with the shivers – a fever. This time I didn’t wait and saw the doctor immediately who took samples and, long story short, yes I have a kidney infection again. Thankfully it isn’t as progressed as last time so I am on a course of antibiotics and that should be that.

I might be very good at looking after people who are sick but I am very bad at actually being sick. When I twisted my ankle the other week anyone would have thought I’d had my foot amputated; when the rooster clawed me and gave me a skin infection I limped around for so many days that Ming told me to stop my nonsense; when I then got asthma for a week I allowed google to scare the hell out of me; and now this.

The three things that scare me most about being sick are these: firstly, I am easily scared; secondly, I am needed; and thirdly, my family and friends will say, “you aren’t looking after yourself – you’re run down” which will make me feel guilty for being sick.

How come, when I am no longer working and no longer having to physically look after Anthony, I am run down? Of course there are logical reasons like not eating healthily enough, not exercising, not getting enough sleep etc. etc. – we all know the drill – but now that I am beginning to admit-to-admit I am a little tired, I think it is simply that I am so sad. No, I don’t mean depressed, although of course that is a factor, I just mean plain old sad – sad about Anthony and his Parkinson’s disease and not being home with us anymore; sad that he is sad; sad that Ming is angry.

Chronic illness sufferers are so much more heroic than ‘come-and-go’ illness wimps like me. I salute them for their courage, determination and wit – and have met many via blogging. They don’t make a fuss about a stitch; they don’t let the sad stuff get the better of them; they soldier on, unfalteringly beautiful, and Anthony is one of these people.

Oh – google has just become my friend again – it says, “It is usually young women who develop kidney infections.” Ah, it’s good when a stitch makes you young again!

blogging Family

45 Comments »